Talking of improvements...

Remember this?

Spot the difference?

No, it didn't fall, and it wasn't pushed (though I did do my best!). I came home one day recently to see a Herts County Council Highways Dept. van parked opposite the house, and two men studying the tree carefully, bouncing it, swinging it, and generally becoming really quite alarmed about it! 

They'd simply been driving down the road, and they spotted it. They weren't responding to my various communications with the Department. They'd been ignored. I'd been fobbed off with half-hearted promises that a team would be out to deal with it "soon". The senior of these two men was on the phone to his office, and his tone was seriously angry, and I heard the words "damage", "injured", "killed!" and "bloody idiots!" as he berated them roundly for having allowed the tree to get like that.

He phoned them back and had another go at them after I'd told them my story.

Less than two hours later, a team arrived and did the deed. Why they left the split stump I don't know, but it is certainly a huge improvement!

Talking of improvements, it'd take a lot to beat this...

Grace and I are supporters of a charity you may well not have heard of. It's true, they don't seem to get much publicity via the media, but Mercy Ships do the most amazing work, taking Africa Mercy, a ship crewed by almost 500 people from many nations, most of them volunteers, to various parts of Africa. Spending months in each port, they perform surgeries to literally thousands of desperately needy folk who cannot otherwise get the treatment they need.

Dreadful growths like this

are removed.

Distorted limbs like this...

are corrected.

Around 7,000 surgeries and other treatments are performed each year,

and hundreds and hundreds of local, African doctors are trained in the necessary procedures, so that the work can be carried on after Mercy Ships leaves.

To date, since they started work in 1978, 2,500,000 people have been helped in 55 countries, 40,000 local professionals have been trained, and the monetary value of their services is put at around $1,000,000,000.

It is an awe-inspiring undertaking. If you want to know more, click here.

Each year, Mercy Ships UK invite their supporters to a Christmas Carol Service. Several cathedrals across the UK host these, and our nearest was Southwark, on London's south bank. We hadn't been before, having only become Friends in April this year.

It was an unpleasant, mizzly Wednesday evening, but that didn't stop anyone. We had hoped to eat in the cathedral Refectory before the service, but found it closed. We ate peanuts and drank bottled water standing against a wall, looking out across a cold, dark Thames.

When the service started, the cathedral was full (the photos above were not taken that evening!), the choir and organ were wonderful, and the whole evening was very enjoyable. Quite moving. Mince pies and mulled wine were served before we set off into the damp night, smiling and humming carols, and feeling rather more Christmassy.